I fasted for 3 days, felt good for the first 24hours then like I might die, so I stopped the fast. I've tried it a few times, 3 days was the furthest I ever got. Each time I eventually become extremely lethargic and have difficulty breathing.

Of course this is not a normal reaction, I think I may have toxins stored in my fat (eg. mycotoxins), which are released during ketosis.

In an experimental model, intermittent fasting reduced by half the amount of heart damage caused by a heart attack.36 Intermittent fasting protects against age-related phenomena like fibrosis, oxidative damage, and inflammation, indicating that it may be preventative of age-related diseases.44 Mice fasting every other day develop fewer cases of lymphoma and liver cancer.37

The risk of diabetes is less with intermittent fasting. A study in rodents showed a reduced incidence of diabetes when fed only on alternate days.33 Studies in humans also suggest that diabetes is less likely to develop with intermittent fasting.34,35

A study in the Journal of Neuroscience Research found that fasting animals for 24 hours, but not 48 hours, after a hit on the head to simulate brain injury from traumatic accidents resulted in less brain damage. The 24 hour fast decreased oxidative stress and calcium loading and increased oxidative phosphorylation in mitochondria isolated from the site of injury.

Research in rodents indicates that intermittent fasting increases both the mean and the maximal life span38, and that it increases neurogenesis in the brain, which means more brain cells develop and survive.39 Also, when fasted rodents were exposed to toxic chemicals to mimic Parkinson’s disease, more brain cells survived and their function improved significantly.40

Fasting may help against another poison, chemotherapy, which is designed to kill cancer cells at the expense of some toxicity to normal ones. A report published in the journal Aging noted that when 10 chemo patients fasted, six reported fewer side effects when they received chemotherapy while fasting compared to when eating normally. The effects of the treatment did not appear to be altered at all.51

In a paper published in 2010 in Cancer Research, a team at the University of Southern California followed the human findings of fasting with a study of mice with cancer. Fasting reduced their IGF-1 levels, an effect which has been shown to prolong life. When given chemotherapy, none of the normal-diet control group survived, while 60 percent of fasting mice lived.52

Eating every other day has been shown to decrease cell proliferation rates, an effect known to reduce the development of cancers. In animal models, intermittent fasting has been shown to reduce cancer growth on the skin and in breast tissue.60

Fasting may be beneficial in the treatment of other diseases as well, particularly those of an autoimmune nature and allergy. Fasting inhibited the development of colitis in an animal model designed to mimic the inflammatory bowel disease, ulcerative colitis, and a systematic review of 31 studies of fasting followed by a vegetarian diet to treat rheumatoid arthritis determined that a statistically and clinically significant beneficial long-term effect was evident.

Fasting for as little as several hours or a day can release environmental toxins stored in fat cells.54,55 When they’re released from that relatively safe storage place where they’re inactive, they can then move to places in the body where they cause damage as a side effect of fasting.5 For example, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons released during fasting seek out melanin in skin cells and induce melanoma.26

The release of pesticides from stored fat in fasting birds during migration caused severe toxicity leading to death. Hexachlorocyclohexane stored in fat cells in rats was released by fasting. It found its way to uterine tissue where it exerted estrogen-like effects. The estrogen simulating effects of this toxin and others are thought to contribute to the development of breast cancer.63 In another study, the release of a pesticide stored in fat cells resulted in nerve damage as a side effect of fasting.64

In other words, while fasting done correctly is healthy, fasting incorrectly can lead to significant toxicity from stored environmental toxins. High circulating levels of environmental toxins in the blood from inappropriate fasting are more likely than lower baseline levels to overwhelm the body’s innate ability to clear them. Fasting must be done correctly to prevent harm from the release of environmental toxins stored in fat cells.

I fasted for 3 days, felt good for the first 24hours then like I might die, so I stopped the fast. I've tried it a few times, 3 days was the furthest I ever got. Each time I eventually become extremely lethargic and have difficulty breathing.

Of course this is not a normal reaction, I think I may have toxins stored in my fat (eg. mycotoxins), which are released during ketosis.

I fasted for 3 days, felt good for the first 24hours then like I might die, so I stopped the fast. I've tried it a few times, 3 days was the furthest I ever got. Each time I eventually become extremely lethargic and have difficulty breathing.

Of course this is not a normal reaction, I think I may have toxins stored in my fat (eg. mycotoxins), which are released during ketosis.

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I regularly do juice fasting for 60 days each year, which is not quite a full fast, because the juice you are drinking supplies around 700 to 800 kilocalories a day (the normal male intake is 2100 kilocalories daily).

I have found that you should not start juice fasting abruptly, but rather taper your way into a fast over the period of a around a week, eating less and less each day, and incrementally cutting out all the heavy foods like meat and junky food first. If you don't do this and start abruptly, you get splitting headaches and terrible irritability, which I assume are due to the sudden release of the store toxins in you body and fat.

Fasting has been in the news recently as a potential cure for type 2 diabetes, a disease that costs the UK NHS 9 billion a year. The interesting thing is that the return of normal blood sugar levels occurs after just one week of fasting using a 800 kilocalorie a day fast, so the effects are extremely rapid.

@Hip, I am not convinced the explanation given is right, but empirically it might still work. I have been considering doing this myself.

My own guess would be that diabetes is a final common pathway (now doesn't that sound familiar?) of many different disease processes. What manifests is the creation of insulin resistance. Its that insulin resistance, and what causes it, that matters.

The myth of excessive fat is a form of confirmation bias. Its easier to create a model of diabetes in animals, or to examine it in people, by examining the obese. Yet I realized in about 2000 that two things were the case. First, there are huge numbers of type 2 diabetics who are skinny. Second, in India they changed the diets of patients back to traditional diets in two small studies, but did not alter the energy intake. They improved. Similarly with native Australians, who have a tendency to diabetes. Return to a native diet and it goes away.

Now I have been diabetic for something like 14 years. I consider it a consequence of long term ME. Yet based on the simple definition given in that article I would only have been diabetic for about a year. This is because my fasting glucose was normal. It was my post-prandial (after food) glucose that was nuts. A massive spike. Last year I developed some kind of unexplained inflammatory process and suddenly my glucose is nuts all the time.

I regularly do juice fasting for 60 days each year, which is not quite a full fast, because the juice you are drinking supplies around 700 to 800 kilocalories a day (the normal male intake is 2100 kilocalories daily).

I have found that you should not start juice fasting abruptly, but rather taper your way into a fast over the period of a around a week, eating less and less each day, and incrementally cutting out all the heavy foods like meat and junky food first. If you don't do this and start abruptly, you get splitting headaches and terrible irritability, which I assume are due to the sudden release of the store toxins in you body and fat.

I tried a variation of this, eating only once a day for 2-3months (so something like 23hour fast every day). I saw no benefit.

Besides, I now know that I feel dramatically better in pristine environments, and I think until I am living in one of these environments, there is no point in trying other therapies, because I am still being exposed to the "thing" in the environment that is making me ill.

In cleaner environments, my ability to detox is greatly increased.
Normally, in the UK, I have to carry out lots of detox therapies in order to stop my skin from breaking out with spots (not acne). If I don't oil-pull for 20minutes and drink 400g juiced spinach and avoid all trigger foods (mostly dairy but I also need to limit my intake of animal-protein) I have spotty skin. I was lucky enough to spend a month in Crete recently and there my skin was perfectly clear, not a single spot, despite not oil-pulling, not drinking juiced spinach and eating lots of dairy and meats for each meal. My alcohol intolerance also disappeared while there.

@Hip, I am not convinced the explanation given is right, but empirically it might still work. I have been considering doing this myself.

My own guess would be that diabetes is a final common pathway (now doesn't that sound familiar?) of many different disease processes. What manifests is the creation of insulin resistance. Its that insulin resistance, and what causes it, that matters.

Click to expand...

Yes I agree, it's the underlying factors that create insulin resistance that are the fundamental cause. Type 2 diabetes involves a combination of insulin resistance and insufficient insulin secretion from beta cells. So there are two final common pathways driving type 2 diabetes. But what initially causes those final common pathways is the question.

As with many diseases, type 2 diabetes has been associated with viral infections— specifically: cytomegalovirus, hepatitis C virus, enteroviruses and Ljungan virus† — and it is quite possible that these infections may play a role in the triggering of type 2 diabetes. Type 1 diabetes is also linked to infections, and in particular, type 1 is linked to chronic coxsackievirus B and echovirus infections, both enteroviruses.

I don't know that much about it, but the TV documentary I was recently watching about an 800 kilocalorie a day fast curing type 2 diabetes in 7 days explained that fat prevents insulin from entering cells, and so fat creates a sort of insulin resistance. The documentary also said that this fasting rapidly burns off the fat deposits accumulated in the liver. Fatty liver is common in type 2 diabetes, and is linked to insulin resistance. This fat accumulation in the liver causes liver inflammation. I understand that this fasting treatment for type 2 diabetes is more successful when performed during the first few years of the disease.

When I tested my blood glucose levels using a cheap glucose meter I bought online, my morning fasting glucose levels were within the normal range. The normal blood sugar range in the morning fasting test is 70 to 99 mg/dL (3.9 to 5.5 mmol/L).

My blood sugar levels 2 hours after eating supper (postprandial glucose test) were just about within the healthy range. If your blood sugar is less than 140 mg/dL (7.8 mmol/L) two hours after your meal, then this is healthy.

If your blood sugar is 140 to 199 mg/dL (7.8 to 11.1 mmol/L) two hours after the meal, this indiactes pre-diabetes. And over 200 mg/dL (11.1 mmol/L) indicates you actually have type 1 or type 2 diabetes.